Japanese activist indicted over Dokdo stakes

Published : 2013-02-17 10:46
Updated : 2013-02-17 21:01

A statue of a sex slave in front of the Japanese embassy. (Yonhap News)

A Japanese right-wing activist will face trial in South Korea for setting up provocative wooden stakes in Seoul and Tokyo last year to lay claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, prosecutors said Sunday.

Nobuyuki Suzuki, a member of an ultra-right Japanese party, was sued by a group of former South Korean sex slaves for defamation in connection with a controversial wooden post he tied to a symbolic statue of a sex slave in front of the Japanese embassy in downtown Seoul in June.

The wooden post had a sign that read, "Dokdo is Japanese territory."

Japan has repeatedly renewed its claim to Dokdo in the East Sea, a thorn between Seoul and Tokyo, while rejecting Seoul's demand for talks on compensating the victims forced into sexual slavery for Japan's World War II soldiers.

Suzuki, 48, is also facing another defamation suit filed by the Patriot Yun Bong Gil Memorial Association for similar vandalism of a monument commemorating Yun, a Korean independence fighter, located in Kanazawa of Ishikawa Prefecture in September.

He then took photos of the scene and posted them on his blog along with derogatory comments about the deceased heroic figure, calling him a terrorist, according to the association. Yun was executed in Japan after attempting to assassinate Japanese leaders during its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

"We've decided to indict him on charges of defaming the former sex slaves and Yun. Though Suzuki snubbed the summons for questioning, solid evidence about his alleged crimes enabled us to indict him without a hitch," said a prosecutor at Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office.

If Suzuki refuses to appear for the trials, the South Korean judicial authorities can hold them with the suspect in absentia. In case he receives a prison sentence, Seoul will request his extradition in accordance with the relevant treaty between the two countries, according to the prosecutor. (Yonhap News)